1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus of assembly and inspection of optical fiber connectors which attach connectors to the ends of optical fiber cables having a single optical fiber cord or multiple optical fiber cords and measure the connection loss etc. of the connectors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some optical fiber cables accommodate large numbers of optical fiber cords in which one or more optical fibers are accommodated.
The assembly of connectors to a large number of cord ends of optical fiber cords led out from the ends of optical fiber cables and the measurement of the connection loss etc. of the connectors are performed manually. In this case, to inspect optical fiber cords where the connectors are assembled, in general the cord ends of the other side of the optical fiber cords to which connectors are assembled are searched for among a large number of other cord ends and a light beam is passed through the optical fiber cords to measure the connection loss.
Even when automating the assembly of connectors to the optical fiber cords, after the connectors are assembled, the optical fiber cords with the connectors attached are arranged in a predetermined order, and the cord ends on the inspection light emission side corresponding to the cord ends where the inspection light is beamed in are searched for among the plurality of cord ends so as to inspect the optical fibers.
In this way, in the conventional method of assembly and method of inspection of optical fiber connectors, the assembly and inspection of the connectors were not performed continuously, so after a connector was assembled to one end of an optical fiber cord, there was the trouble of searching for the other end of the optical fiber cord to which the connector was assembled, which complicated the inspection process.
Further, even when automating the assembly of connectors to the optical fiber cords, there was the trouble of storing the cords in a predetermined order so as to enable the fibers desired to be inspected to be easily found.
Note that this type of problem occurs not only in optical fiber cables having a plurality of optical fiber cords but also in the case of connection of connectors to the ends of large numbers of single-core or multi-core optical fiber cords (including the case where the optical fibers cords themselves are referred to as optical fiber cables) bound together.